Posts are written by library staff and reflect their personal opinions not necessarily those of MSK.
What happens when a visual artist goes to work at a cancer nanomedicine laboratory?
As an article in artnet News and MSK’s On Cancer blog reports, it can lead to a new medium. Working together, artist Joseph Cohen and MSK chemist Dr. Daniel Heller developed a paint containing carbon nanotubes, a material used by the lab in diagnostic tests. They are invisible to the human eye but light up when viewed with an infrared camera.
Dr. Joseph Dayan. Photo by Ethan Kavet.
There’s currently no cure for lymphedema, the uncomfortable swelling that can occur in limbs after the removal or radiation of lymph nodes. But there are symptom-alleviating treatments, many of which are described in an article in Cure.
The article quotes MSK’s Dr. Joseph Dayan, who has performed microsurgery to manage lymphedema for a decade, including lymph node transplant. Dr. Dayan pioneered a technique called reverse lymphatic mapping, through which physicians identify lymph nodes that can be safely removed and transplanted to the affected arm or leg. Patients take three to four weeks to recover from lymph node transplant, and most who undergo it experience improved limb drainage.
Learn more about lymphedema prevention, screening, and treatment at MSK.
Figure 1, Part C: The absolute number of patients of races other than white who participated in pivotal trials leading to FDA approval was considerably low. From: Loree JM, Anand S, Dasari A, et al. Disparity of Race Reporting and Representation in Clinical Trials Leading to Cancer Drug Approvals From 2008 to 2018. JAMA Oncol. Published online August 15, 2019. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2019.1870
Back in 2004, a study published in JAMA indicated that racial and ethnic minorities, women, and the elderly were less likely to enroll in cooperative group cancer clinical trials than were whites, men, and younger patients, respectively. A more recent ProPublica examination showed that black people and Native Americans are under-represented in clinical trials of new drugs, even when the treatment is aimed at a type of cancer that disproportionately affects them.
Dr. Mona Fouad suggests that one possible strategy to increase minority participation in clinical trials may be patient navigators. A 2016 study she co-authored on patient navigation demonstrated that the patient navigation model “holds promise as a strategy to reduce disparities in cancer clinical trial participation” and that “future studies should evaluate it with racial/ethnic minorities across cancer centers.”